Tang Hotpot

Forget about waiting for the chef to cook your food: At Szechuan restaurants like Tang Hotpot, you prepare your dinner tableside. First, choose the broth you’ll use to cook the rest of your dinner: Options include a spicy broth made with beef tallow and more than 30 different herbs and spices ($15), a vegetarian mushroom-herb broth ($15) and a pork bone broth ($12). You can either order toppings like Kobe ribeye ($60), quail eggs ($6) and enoki mushrooms ($6) a la carte, or opt for a combination platter like the Szechuan Adventure platter with beef tripe, beef meatballs with soup filling, swamp eel, vermicelli noodles, winter melon and more ($40 per person). And after a meal of hot foods, an ice-cold dessert is just the thing. Matcha shaved ice with mini mochi and red bean paste ($9) or a scoop of lychee rose ice cream ($5) might hit the spot.